I actually did an entire study on the average number of minutes played by real life NCAA starters vs. the amount of minutes played by WiS starters to show people, statistically, exactly how WiS is screwed up in this area, but posting it is pointless. Many seem to much rather enjoy the bliss of their ignorance or force themselves to suspend all concepts of reality and mold and shape themselves into this distorted WiS world until they can actually enjoy it.

Please, post the results of your "study". We have some pretty savvy mathematician types that cruise the board that I'm sure would love to check it out. I'm guessing the reasoning behind not posting the results lies more with a faulty study rather than feeling it would be pointless. If you have valid data from a legit study that exposes an actual flaw in the game, it will be treated fairly. I'm doubtful of the legitimacy though.

Why else would you draw attention to the fact that you have taken the time to do something but then not go through sharing the results (which I'm sure was the entire point of doing the study)?

p.s. I rewrote the entire HD engine to realign the conferences and fix all the outstanding bugs. But sharing it is pointless.

*sighs* It's pointless because I already know the responses I'll get. Things like "Who is in what conference doesn't make a lick of difference. It's a game, not real life." and "It doesn't bother me in the slightest, would never even think about it until it gets occasionally discussed here." i.e. we don't CARE if it's not realistic so pointing out that it's not realistic matters not!

I fully expect that everyone will reject the study "just because" no matter what it says but ask and ye shall receive.

*note I attached the documents as images, shown in the following links.

The following chart I sorted the entire sample of players (not just starters) by MPG and graphed them. You can obviously see how WiS team players 1-6 minutes are too low (consistent with the top 5 starter study). The 7th best players minutes are just about right, but then to make up for the top player minute short-comings, WiS players 8-11 are playing too many minutes. So the "good" players are generally forced to rest in lieu of "worse" players.

I actually did an entire study on the average number of minutes played by real life NCAA starters vs. the amount of minutes played by WiS starters to show people, statistically, exactly how WiS is screwed up in this area, but posting it is pointless. Many seem to much rather enjoy the bliss of their ignorance or force themselves to suspend all concepts of reality and mold and shape themselves into this distorted WiS world until they can actually enjoy it.

Please, post the results of your "study". We have some pretty savvy mathematician types that cruise the board that I'm sure would love to check it out. I'm guessing the reasoning behind not posting the results lies more with a faulty study rather than feeling it would be pointless. If you have valid data from a legit study that exposes an actual flaw in the game, it will be treated fairly. I'm doubtful of the legitimacy though.

Why else would you draw attention to the fact that you have taken the time to do something but then not go through sharing the results (which I'm sure was the entire point of doing the study)?

p.s. I rewrote the entire HD engine to realign the conferences and fix all the outstanding bugs. But sharing it is pointless.

*sighs* It's pointless because I already know the responses I'll get. Things like "Who is in what conference doesn't make a lick of difference. It's a game, not real life." and "It doesn't bother me in the slightest, would never even think about it until it gets occasionally discussed here." i.e. we don't CARE if it's not realistic so pointing out that it's not realistic matters not!

I fully expect that everyone will reject the study "just because" no matter what it says but ask and ye shall receive.

*note I attached the documents as images, shown in the following links.

The following chart I sorted the entire sample of players (not just starters) by MPG and graphed them. You can obviously see how WiS team players 1-6 minutes are too low (consistent with the top 5 starter study). The 7th best players minutes are just about right, but then to make up for the top player minute short-comings, WiS players 8-11 are playing too many minutes. So the "good" players are generally forced to rest in lieu of "worse" players.

Now, please feel free to "doubt the legitimacy" of my study. Lord knows my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering means I have no idea how to do a basic statistical analysis.

because you asked so nicely, i suppose i have to oblige you.

in terms of taking raw data, and doing a basic statistical analysis, ill just assume you have the basic proficiency required to, you know, do the basic math. so i wont question the basic math of your study. however, you dont need a PHD in anything to know it takes more than basic math to make a legitimate study.

so i will, however, doubt the legitimacy of your study. for starters, let me make it clear - its dead obvious the difference you are trying to show here, is a part of HD. its well known to almost 100% of coaches who have a clue. its also been discussed at length, and most coaches agree limiting the usefulness of depth takes away a number of strategic elements currently present in the game - and that is the reason most of us dont care - or more precisely, prefer the status quo. now, having said its clear this difference exists - i do not agree your study adequately demonstrates the existence of a difference in the way the HD sim engine itself works and real life works. nor does this study effectively capture the extent of the difference, if it exists. furthermore, if there is a difference, its not clear the divergence from reality is actually a byproduct of the sim engine itself (where a higher standard of realism is expected), or from other pieces of the game, like recruiting, practice plans (where a lower standard of realism is expected), or from coach tendencies (where no standard of realism should be expected).

for starters, you dont need a basic understanding of statistics to point out that comparing the real life playing time of d1 teams - roughly half of which are high end d1 teams - to the simulated playing time of d2 teams - is somewhat nonsensical. on that single point alone, this study effectively shows nothing. even worse, you pick ALL the d1 teams from various conferences, while cherry picking the teams from a single conference in d2, and more importantly, the top 25.

within HD, you have the flexibility to build teams different ways. just because more users choose to build a team a certain way, which skews results from reality, does not make the sim engine itself inconsistent with reality. for example, in HD, users have a bias towards sagging inside - increasing the 3pt% and 3pta of opponents, resulting in higher 3pt% in HD than real life. this alone does not make HD inconsistent.

similarly, you have cherry picked, within HD, top notch d2 teams (over 65% of teams you picked, were the entire top 25). in HD, users have a tendency to play deep teams. they work to find enough talented players to fill the team, rather than working to find the most talented players, and filling in with whatever they choose. this is especially true for top teams in d2 - there are pretty many players out there, and outside of a select few (who are most likely to go to d1), its close to a crap shoot, deciding who is better. so the top teams are usually pretty deep. in real life, the talent gap you generally see between d1 players is going to be much higher than in d2 and d3. so by using d2 players in HD, and comparing to d1 players in real life, its obvious you are comparing apples to oranges. in both HD and real life, talent gaps are bigger in d1, and we'd expect minutes of starters to therefore by higher in d1. so if you had compared real life d2 to HD d2, maybe you'd be on to something - but as it stands, that is not the case. cherry picking the top 25 - the teams who have coaches most proficient at juggling the recruitment of many talented players - furthers the problem.

if you take a cross sample of sims, you'll get something MUCH closer to real life. some teams in HD choose to run with 7 or 8 key players - those teams are taking a much more realistic course - and will match your real life numbers pretty nicely, i think you'll find. just because HD offers you flexibility, that doesnt mean the sim is unrealistic. you have to compare like scenarios to make that determination. nobody can expect a game where people who are not real life coaches, make unrealistic coaching decisions, to match up exactly to real life, where real coaches make realistic decisions. that would be ridiculous.

finally, note that elements like recruiting, simply cannot be made to be very realistic. there is no reasonable way to simulate coach interactions with players over their high school career. in HD, even the people pushing for realism generally make the basic concession, that while they want the sim engine to be highly realistic, and they may even want the other pieces of the game to be more realistic if possible, that its just not possible or practical to try to totally emulate reality. you cant simulate a head coach's interview with the AD, for example. so, i think its important to have a context here. a lack of realism in something like recruiting, is much more palatable than a lack of realism in how a game is actually simulated. in HD, its easier to recruit many talented players - one reason is, the playing time requirements the players have to be happy, are unrealistically low. i can concede that lack of realism, which is much more palatable, and point to it as a root cause for HD teams being deeper and thus playing starters less (also because starters dont expect certain amount of playing time, like they do in real life), resulting in lower averages for starters - without conceding a lack of realism in the sim engine itself.

so, if you want to complain that HD is like a fantasy game, because HD doesnt accurately simulate the emotional range of a teenager (resulting in playing time expectations) - then go ahead, nobody will argue with you, but you might look a bit foolish. thats just not a reasonable standard. if you want to complain HD is like a fantasy game because HD doesnt accurately simulate a game, that is a reasonable standard, and you'll get a lot more listeners (and there are many inaccuracies the community is aware of, but its pretty solid), but theres also a higher standard of proof or on the logic present in anecdotal arguments - and this study just isnt up to snuff.

Haven't found one that I really love. I used to play the EA games back in 05 or 06 ish on XBox but spent more time customizing rosters than actually playing the game. I couldn't deal with PG#5 on my team or my opponents. Really crappy that we'll probably not see another college hoops game for a LONG time, or at least as long as those player lawsuits are floating around. As for other college games, I must have played 30 seasons of NCAA Football 03 or 04 just because I absolutely loved scouting and recruiting the HS players. So if your question was meant to be focused on just college basketball simulations though, the answer is none.

If your question was to find (in general) the level of realism I desire out of a simulation, then I'm an avid sim racer and the only simulation I will use is iRacing. If you've never heard of it I strongly suggest checking it out. (As an aside I also do modeling & simulation for the USAF as my day job so I have experience developing real world simulators).

Haven't found one that I really love. I used to play the EA games back in 05 or 06 ish on XBox but spent more time customizing rosters than actually playing the game. I couldn't deal with PG#5 on my team or my opponents. Really crappy that we'll probably not see another college hoops game for a LONG time, or at least as long as those player lawsuits are floating around. As for other college games, I must have played 30 seasons of NCAA Football 03 or 04 just because I absolutely loved scouting and recruiting the HS players. So if your question was meant to be focused on just college basketball simulations though, the answer is none.

If your question was to find (in general) the level of realism I desire out of a simulation, then I'm an avid sim racer and the only simulation I will use is iRacing. If you've never heard of it I strongly suggest checking it out. (As an aside I also do modeling & simulation for the USAF as my day job so I have experience developing real world simulators).

Haven't found one that I really love. I used to play the EA games back in 05 or 06 ish on XBox but spent more time customizing rosters than actually playing the game. I couldn't deal with PG#5 on my team or my opponents. Really crappy that we'll probably not see another college hoops game for a LONG time, or at least as long as those player lawsuits are floating around. As for other college games, I must have played 30 seasons of NCAA Football 03 or 04 just because I absolutely loved scouting and recruiting the HS players. So if your question was meant to be focused on just college basketball simulations though, the answer is none.

If your question was to find (in general) the level of realism I desire out of a simulation, then I'm an avid sim racer and the only simulation I will use is iRacing. If you've never heard of it I strongly suggest checking it out. (As an aside I also do modeling & simulation for the USAF as my day job so I have experience developing real world simulators).

Wow, dare I say we're more alike than different. My favorite college sports game (aside from this) is NCAA Football 2004, as I too loved the recruiting and could run/sim seasons ad nauseum. I looked up and down for a good college basketball game and never found one that I liked, or I guess to put it better/differently, I never found a cbb game that I liked to recruit/the recruiting setup in. I think the NCAAB 2K5? with Josh Childress plays the best, but the recruiting is a bit wonky and overly complex...I'm not a fan of "in season" recruiting...the EA March Madness game (2004?) with Carmelo Anthony on the cover also plays pretty well, but you can pretty much hopstep your way into anything/everything.

I really think if you can get past the conference alignments in this game and play a few seasons with the same team/school, that you could learn to enjoy this game for all the great things that it is, and the cool people that you'll meet/compete against in any given world. I'm not sure if you coached in Phelan before, but there should be a pretty significant opening in my conference and I'd like to invite you to join if you'd give the game another chance...I'd offer advice if you wanted/needed it, though my thoughts/processes are probably quite different than those others that play the game and are perhaps more successful as well. If you're interested, you could sitemail me, I'll let you know what school will be opening up, and if it's not taken by the sign up, you could take over, simply by pressing your SAP button lol.

One last thing, I too enjoy the hell out of racing games. I've probably played at least 30 in my lifetime, I was on iRacing for a brief moment (I wasn't good, it seems like an awesome game/sim though.) and just completed what I call a Man v. Game challenge with a SNES title named F1 ROC - Race of Champions (known as Exhaust Heat in Japan)...I raced 3344 races (209 seasons) in the 2012 calendar year, so yeah I too am crazy, put vids up on YouTube, the whole shot. I just bought Grand Prix Legends from Amazon but unfortunately it won't work on my comp...it's a PC game made by Papyrus/Sierra that re-creates the 1967? F1 season...such a great concept from a great company. I don't know a lot of the technical/mechanical stuff about racing, but I am always looking for a great racing game and pretty regularly watch NASCAR, F1, and IndyCar. I need to invest in a wheel though, a recommendation would be nice if you would.

And for everyone else's sake, I'll stop rambling right here. Graff, you have my endorsement here, I hope you stick around and give it another go...I play a TON of games, always looking for what's better/best, and trust me, when it comes to college basketball, this is it man...this is the pinnacle.

Graff, I would also like to apologize for calling you an idiot on here, it was low of me, no matter how ridiculous I thought the content of your posts were and how hard you were going. I feel there's hope for you in this game/these boards whereas many may have already checked out on you here. I hope you make the most of whatever you choose.

Haven't found one that I really love. I used to play the EA games back in 05 or 06 ish on XBox but spent more time customizing rosters than actually playing the game. I couldn't deal with PG#5 on my team or my opponents. Really crappy that we'll probably not see another college hoops game for a LONG time, or at least as long as those player lawsuits are floating around. As for other college games, I must have played 30 seasons of NCAA Football 03 or 04 just because I absolutely loved scouting and recruiting the HS players. So if your question was meant to be focused on just college basketball simulations though, the answer is none.

If your question was to find (in general) the level of realism I desire out of a simulation, then I'm an avid sim racer and the only simulation I will use is iRacing. If you've never heard of it I strongly suggest checking it out. (As an aside I also do modeling & simulation for the USAF as my day job so I have experience developing real world simulators).

Wow, dare I say we're more alike than different. My favorite college sports game (aside from this) is NCAA Football 2004, as I too loved the recruiting and could run/sim seasons ad nauseum. I looked up and down for a good college basketball game and never found one that I liked, or I guess to put it better/differently, I never found a cbb game that I liked to recruit/the recruiting setup in. I think the NCAAB 2K5? with Josh Childress plays the best, but the recruiting is a bit wonky and overly complex...I'm not a fan of "in season" recruiting...the EA March Madness game (2004?) with Carmelo Anthony on the cover also plays pretty well, but you can pretty much hopstep your way into anything/everything.

I really think if you can get past the conference alignments in this game and play a few seasons with the same team/school, that you could learn to enjoy this game for all the great things that it is, and the cool people that you'll meet/compete against in any given world. I'm not sure if you coached in Phelan before, but there should be a pretty significant opening in my conference and I'd like to invite you to join if you'd give the game another chance...I'd offer advice if you wanted/needed it, though my thoughts/processes are probably quite different than those others that play the game and are perhaps more successful as well. If you're interested, you could sitemail me, I'll let you know what school will be opening up, and if it's not taken by the sign up, you could take over, simply by pressing your SAP button lol.

One last thing, I too enjoy the hell out of racing games. I've probably played at least 30 in my lifetime, I was on iRacing for a brief moment (I wasn't good, it seems like an awesome game/sim though.) and just completed what I call a Man v. Game challenge with a SNES title named F1 ROC - Race of Champions (known as Exhaust Heat in Japan)...I raced 3344 races (209 seasons) in the 2012 calendar year, so yeah I too am crazy, put vids up on YouTube, the whole shot. I just bought Grand Prix Legends from Amazon but unfortunately it won't work on my comp...it's a PC game made by Papyrus/Sierra that re-creates the 1967? F1 season...such a great concept from a great company. I don't know a lot of the technical/mechanical stuff about racing, but I am always looking for a great racing game and pretty regularly watch NASCAR, F1, and IndyCar. I need to invest in a wheel though, a recommendation would be nice if you would.

And for everyone else's sake, I'll stop rambling right here. Graff, you have my endorsement here, I hope you stick around and give it another go...I play a TON of games, always looking for what's better/best, and trust me, when it comes to college basketball, this is it man...this is the pinnacle.

I really like college hoops 2k8 it's really sick recruiting presentation and gameplay is sick. Also I dnt want them to realign conferences because I like to have full conferences and I talk to my conferences mates I wouldn't just want to be taken away from my conference.

I really wish this forum had the ability to quote only parts of a post ... you know manually with "[quote] and [/quote]" type tags. I really want to respond to coach billy but would like to be able to address things specifically instead of just having one monster quote.